Syrian Opposition Remains Divided on Engagement

Despite countless attempts by the Bashar al-Assad regime to
subdue the sporadic protests that have appeared across Syria
since February, the demonstrations have consistently grown in
both size and intensity.

Last week, a march in the
town of Hama may have attracted over
100,000 protesters, quite likely the largest anti-Assad demonstration
in Syria thus far.

While the opposition grows, however, its leadership remains bitterly
divided, geographically disparate, and unable to agree on tactics to
oust the Assad regime or a collective political vision for a post-Assad future.

As another round of crackdowns
broke out this week, opposition
figures in Syria and abroad have continued to battle one another on
the central question of how to engage with the regime.

At a meeting last week in Washington hosted by the Muslim Public
Affairs Council and the New American Foundation, policy analysts and
international advocates met with Syrian American figures involved in
the opposition movement to discuss the role of the international
community in resolving the Syrian crisis.

A particularly passionate debate raged around the role of the United
States in assisting the Syrian opposition movement. Some, such as
international human rights lawyer Yaser Tabbara, argued that
Washington was purposely pulling its punches and could be doing much
more to help.

Over the course of the morning, Tabbara called for tighter sanctions,
stronger condemnations of government heavy-handedness, more
international political leverage, and a direct appeal from President
Barack Obama for a United Nations Security Council resolution
condemning the Syrian government.

Others, including author and historian Mark Perry, gave words of
support for the Syrian people but asked the audience, “What should
we do? Nothing. This is a revolution in the hands of the Syrian
people.”

Perry was confident in the “inevitability” of the revolution, but
maintained that “a revolution is very difficult to stop, to
influence, or to make succeed. They have their own internal dynamic.”

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a professor at the
College of William &
Mary and the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin
Powell, agreed that the U.S. had very limited leverage and a very
low willingness to use it.

He reminded attendees that all policy decisions “have to be
considered in a bigger tapestry than just Syria,” adding that “the
U.S. strategic interests in the region are significant in other
countries where there’s turmoil going on. We have to handle this with
finesse, in the scope of U.S. national interests, against a fiscal
backdrop that’s absolutely frightening. To ask [the Assad regime] for
some kind of deadline without backing it up with the threat of force,
or to ask for any more adamant position of the United States, is not
useful.”

Many others took a middle road, recognizing that U.S. leverage was
minimal at best, but certain small steps could be taken to assist the
Syrian resistance without overextending Washington’s reach.

Nuh Yilmaz, director of the Foundation for
Political, Economic, and
Social Research, tried to demonstrate Turkey’s inclination to take a
middle path by refusing to “have a civil war on its border” while
trying to maintain relationships with both the Assad regime and the
protest movement.

Yilmaz argued that it was in Turkey’s strategic interest — and
consequently, regional strategic interest — to ensure that Assad
produces real reforms and that the opposition moderates their
demands.

He emphasized the “need to be strategic” and make better use of the
international community’s limited leverage, but others were less
willing to recognize any legitimacy for the Assad regime.

“The regime is inflexible, and therefore irredeemable,” said Louay
Safi, a member of the Syrian American Council. He urged the
international community to “choke the security apparatus in Syria,
make sure they’re not getting any outside funding … and take legal
action.”

The disagreement on the fundamental question of foreign intervention
comes as U.S. diplomats have struggled to chart a strategic course in
Syria, often deciding on a middle ground that neither side finds
particularly satisfying.

Last week, the State Department was rumored to have put forward a
“road map” for Syrian reforms that would allow
Assad to remain in
power while overseeing a number of democratic reforms in the country.
The road map calls for the Syrian government to appoint a
“transitional assembly” to oversee the institution of open elections,
the legalization of political parties, and the loosening of media
restrictions.

Though Washington has denied pushing for the road map, a number of
Syrian opposition members have claimed that official
sources,
including U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, have been encouraging
the opposition to seek common ground with Assad.

Many figures, however, have openly condemned the road map, reiterating
the idea that such reforms are “too little, too late” and calling
for nothing less than the downfall of the regime and its Ba’ath Party
supporters.

These overtures for compromise, emanating from Turkey, and to a
lesser extent, the U.S., may be beginning to have an effect on Assad.
A large opposition meeting held in Damascus, with the permission of
state authorities, was held last week at the Semiramis hotel, the
first of its kind in decades.